


domestication

by zombeesknees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 18:30:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16959273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: The Doctor doesn’t do domestic. …Does he? | Written many moons ago on LJ.





	domestication

As Rose struggled through the doorway, an over-flowing, just-about-to-rip brown bag of groceries clutched awkwardly to her chest, she tripped over a pair of his worn trainers.

Again.

At the last moment she managed to catch herself on the railing beside the door, but the bag gave up its brave fight and split down the middle, spilling Premium Grade A eggs and bananas and bread and Colby cheese across the grated floor of the TARDIS. 

She cursed loudly, sweeping the disheveled blonde hair back from her eyes, watching with an almost resigned stare of defeat as the now-scuffed bottle of Chardonnay rolled away from her, finally coming to rest under the ship’s console.

And then she looked down at the cause of this small catastrophe, a somewhat yellowed pair of old Converse shoes that she was well familiar with. She’d seen those shoes run through fire and hail and snow and dust, usually a couple paces ahead of her.

She’d also tripped over them at least twelve times in the past two weeks.

The Doctor had a lot of things on his mind—well, he always did, but lately even more so. The TARDIS had begun making worrying sounds, and he was doing his best to diagnose the problem before anything major broke down or died. More often than not, Rose would find him with his head and shoulders inside the console, standing on his tip-toes and leaning dangerously forward in order to reach a sparking wire or flickering light. 

(She’d wanted to slap his bum or tickle that pale patch of back that peeked out from between his trousers and shirt when he was doing this, but she’d always stopped herself for fear of his hand slipping in the middle of some delicate procedure and wreaking unholy havoc on the interior of the TARDIS.)

So, of course, while there were such pressing concerns and a heavy weight on his mind, she’d refrained from chiding him like he was a ten-year-old boy who refused to tidy his room.

Even though that was _exactly_ how he was acting these days.

Rose sighed heavily, twisted her hair back into a messy bun, and started salvaging what she could. The eggs were a wholly lost cause, and she spared a moment to worry about what the yolks, surely cooking now on some hot machinery beneath the grated floor, would do to the poor, ailing TARDIS.

The Doctor walked in just then, a huge bundle of wire slung over one shoulder, a large cardboard box labeled **SPARE THINGAMABOBS** in his arms, and his sonic screwdriver clenched between his teeth. He nodded at her in an absent, I-see-you’re-home-but-I’m-not-really-paying-attention-to-you way, immediately stepped over the spilled groceries, and crouched down, setting the box aside and producing a stevedore's hook from his jacket pocket before pulling up a square of grating and slipping down through the opening.

“Doctor,” Rose said.

His head slowly reappeared, with all the manner of a guilty child. The screwdriver was still in his mouth. 

“Yes’m?” he said after removing it. While he’d never paid much attention to his professors on Gallifrey, _anyone_ who has ever attended a schooling institution has a deeply ingrained fear of hearing the dreaded Disapproving Teacher Voice, and Rose had somehow compacted every nuance of the Voice into his name.

“You notice how our tea and supper is lying about the floor?”

“…Yes’m.”

“Care to wager a guess as to why that is?”

“…No.”

“I tripped. Over your trainers. Again. You left ‘em right in front of the door. Again. I want to stress the ‘again’ part, in case you didn’t catch that.”

“Sorry,” he said with a gratifying degree of sheepishness. “Slipped my mind.”

“And it’s not just the trainers. You’ve got things thrown all over the place. I found one of your ties in the fridge yesterday.”

“I must have left it there when I got out a slice of pie last night,” he said.

“The pie that I made for dinner at Mum’s tomorrow?”

His eyes didn’t quite meet hers, and his head sunk slightly lower out of sight. “It’s a very good pie, Rose. I couldn’t help myself.”

She sighed heavily. “Doctor, if we’re going to be here much longer, I think we need to do some tidying. It’s all well and good having mess about when we’re busy running through time and space, but it just doesn’t _work_ if we have to sit still for more than a couple days. Also, I’d like to be able to make a decent cup of tea without having to be careful of the grease cans and timey-whimey devices and glitter glue you leave all over the counters.” 

“But, I’ve got calibrations and re-calibrations and post-calibrations to work on,” he protested. “Bolts to tighten and gaskets to loosen. And the entire transmodular biomolecular dystropianism mechanism needs an overhaul.”

Rose stepped closer, sat down, and dangled her legs over the edge of the open grate beside him. “Are you throwing around technobabble in the hopes of getting me to lay off?”

“No. Absolutely not. Well, not entirely.”

“Doctor,” she said quietly, her face perfectly serious. “If you don’t come out of there and help me clean right this moment, there won’t be _any_ jammy dodgers tonight, and I _won’t_ stay in for that French movie you wanted to watch. I’ll call up Sherine and go clubbing and flirt with some tanned bloke from Oxford.”

“I’ll start on the kitchen, shall I?”

“Good idea,” she said with a smile, reaching out to run a finger along the line of his jaw. “Be sure to soak the dishes before you scrub ‘em.”

 

For all of his grumbling, the Doctor conceded that Rose had a very valid point. The entire place felt fresher, happier, warmer when they’d finished. And when she’d asked him to help her with dinner, he’d found the experience of standing next to her and chopping vegetables while she mixed the salad to be surprisingly pleasant. 

And after they’d had their warm jammy dodgers and curled up on the freshly vacuumed couch for the movie, and Rose’s hands—smelling of lemon soap and polish—had slipped under his collar and over his shoulders, well…

The Doctor had to admit that doing the domestic thing wasn’t all that boring and tedious, after all.


End file.
